COBOL "non-myth" confirmed - Index and subscripts (MF on Windows)
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From: Pete Dashwood on 21 Sep 2007 10:29 "LX-i" <lxi0007(a)netscape.net> wrote in message news:YaidncS6RurpsG7bnZ2dnUVZ_j6dnZ2d(a)comcast.com... > Robert wrote: >> On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:53:29 -0600, LX-i <lxi0007(a)netscape.net> wrote: >> >> >>> You've shown that what used to be significant overhead with subscripts >>> is now gone in one particular environment. >> >> It's gone on all platforms, or soon will be. >> >>> But, the completeness of being able to define an array with (an) >>> index(es) of its' very own appeals to some people, who will continue to >>> do it. Using an index isn't 1970's COBOL. >> >> That's true. Indexes were introduced 'recently' in the '74 Standard. My >> how time flies. > > PICTURE was introduced in 68, if memory serves - is it obsolete too? I remember coding COBOL before there was a PICTURE clause (It was the COBOL 59 compiler). We used SIZE, CLASS, and USAGE to achieve the same result. I also remember being able to write OTHERWISE in an IF statement... happy days...:-) > Just because something is old doesn't make it obsolete; sometimes its age > is a testament to its usefulness. :) I keep telling my friends that, but they still think I'm obsolete...:-) Pete. -- "I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."
From: Alistair on 21 Sep 2007 12:52 I do wish you hadn't tugged my chain by bringing Evolution into the argument. Especially as you don't appear to have much knowledge of how Evolution works. Comments below: On 21 Sep, 01:16, Robert <n...(a)e.mail> wrote: > On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:07:13 -0600, Howard Brazee <how...(a)brazee.net> wrote: > >On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:51:48 -0500, Robert <n...(a)e.mail> wrote: > > This is about evolution versus revolution. The evolutionary approach is to change one > thing, give it enough time to succeed or fail (testing) before moving on to the next > change. Evolution is about incremental implementation of a multitude of changes simultaneously (or even all at once). > The resolutionary approach is to change everything at once, for example to a new > language. > > Evolution is inherentely safe; Except for those who get left behind or out-competed or even those blind evolutionary off-shoots which end up in dead-ends.. > revolution is inherently prone to failure. Evolution is the > preferred approach. The problem is it may be too slow to keep up with environmental > changes, either because the environment is changing rapidly or because resistance to > change slows evolution to a crawl. With Cobol, the latter is the case. Institutionalized > foot dragging (standards) slowed Cobol's evolution so much that it was doomed to failure, > to fall behind even a moderate pace of environment change. The only alternative, albeit an > undesirable one, was a revolutionary change to another language: Java. You clearly don't have any idea why Cobol became so yesteryear and java became the new fashion accessory. > > This could have been prevented by allowing Cobol to change at a normal rate. True > conservatives would have seen that, and thereby conserved Cobol. > Then which version of the myriad Cobols would be the one true cobol? > What about the ones who destroyed Cobol with excessive resistance to change? Resistance to change was not what killed Cobol. > They are > demonstrably not conservatives because they didn't conserve it. The most common > perjorative, dinosaur, might be appropriate. Dinosaurs became extinct because they were > incapable or unwilling to change .. except for a 'radical faction' that morphed into birds > and an old school we now call crocodilians. Both are minor players in the biological > world. And don't forget the mammals which also derived from the dinosaurs. And just how rapidly do you expect creatures to evolve in order to avoid being wiped out by a meteor strike? You chose a bad analogy.
From: Alistair on 21 Sep 2007 12:54 On 21 Sep, 01:36, Robert <n...(a)e.mail> wrote: > On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:16:24 +0000 (UTC), docdw...(a)panix.com () wrote: > >In article <bhm3f3lhlko53ia8rbjg536gjqc95s3...(a)4ax.com>, > >Robert <n...(a)e.mail> wrote: > > >[snip] > > >>Management found > >>it easier to > >>change the language than do battle with the Cobol bureaucracy. > > >Mr Wagner, this is confusing... how can a computer programming establish a > >bureaucracy rather than the Management which employs it? > > That's easy. Management doesn't get involved with 'technical stuff'. It lets techies slug > it out between themselves. Thus we have a technical bureaucracy that is separate from the > political bureaucracy where management lives. Programming Standards are the primary tool > of the technical bureaucracy. > > Techies falsely claim that management supports these technical standards. That's not true; > management couldn't care less. > > On many methodology checklists, the whole development process is reduced to a single line > item out of some 150. It basically says 'you techies do whatever you want; we'll catch > your mistakes during testing.' The single line includes programming, unit testing, code > review. etc. That's not management support, that's management throwing up its hands. Methinks you are being very silly. I do not believe that, excepting for yourself, there is anyone on this newsgroup who does not care for standards or who works for a manager who does not care for standards.
From: Judson McClendon on 21 Sep 2007 14:18 "HeyBub" <heybubNOSPAM(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > From "Systemantics:" > > "A working large system is invariably found to have evolved from a working smaller system. A large system designed from scratch > will not work and cannot be made to work." There's a lot of truth in that. Complexity increases geometrically, not linearly. Difficulty increases much faster than size, at an ever increasing ratio. Since human ability to deal with complexity isn't infinite, it is inevitable that at some point it can't be done. Q.E.D. ;-) -- Judson McClendon judmc(a)sunvaley0.com (remove zero) Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
From: Howard Brazee on 21 Sep 2007 14:38
On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:29:22 -0500, Robert <no(a)e.mail> wrote: >I'm throwing schoolboy insults at mainframers because they destroyed the programming >language I love. What could those mainframers you are insulting on this forum have done to have kept CoBOL from being "destroyed"? |